How UK’s Glastonbury Festival became a Hate Rally - opinion

Glastonbury Festival is more than just the UK’s largest music event—it’s a cultural institution. Held annually over five days in June, it hosts hundreds of artists across sprawling stages and draws more than 200,000 attendees from the UK and around the world.

It’s so central to British culture that the BBC—its state-funded broadcaster—streams it live across the nation. But this year, the melodies were tainted by something much darker: anti-Jewish frenzy.

One of the bands scheduled to appear this year was Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap – a group of Irish Republicans who became famous after creating controversy at the Coachella festival in April as they accused Israel of genocide and screamed “f**k Israel” on stage.

UK counter-terrorism police became involved when videos soon surfaced of members of the band calling for the death of British MPs and openly supporting proscribed Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

But even waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags in open support for terrorism did not stop Kneecap’s appearance at Glastonbury. And as the Glastonbury line-up was only confirmed AFTER all this occurred, there can be no pleading ignorance from either the organizers, the BBC, or any of the sponsors. They knew who they were featuring at center stage.

That being said, the BBC executives did experience some small level of stage fright. With concerns of what Kneecap might do during their set, the BBC did not stream the set live; rather, it was made available later through the BBC’s catch-up service.

But all this is just the backdrop of an even more vile pattern that has emerged and grown across the UK. As a sign of the popularity of Kneecap’s messaging, access to their performance was closed, as the field became too full to accommodate any more people. Calling for violence, supporting terrorism, and calling for Israel’s destruction simply added to their popularity.  This is all just another sign of the moral and social demise in the UK.

And as it turned out, Kneecap wasn’t even the worst of it.

When rapper Bob Vylan took to the stage, he began an audience sing-along using genocidal antisemitic slogans. Vylan was not satisfied with the usual cultish chants of “free Palestine” and “from the river to the sea.” Appearing rather proud of himself, he told the audience they would not know this one, before leading a call of “death, death to the IDF.”

During the entire five days of the festival, there were no chants against Hamas or Hezbollah, groups that have claimed the lives of UK citizens, as well as those of Americans, Israelis, and other nationals. The only public call was for the death of the Israeli soldiers defending the Jewish people from annihilation. And the audience sang along with glee as they waved their Palestinian and Lebanese flags above the masses of people.

Let me repeat that: An artist stepped on stage and called for the death of almost every Israeli between the ages of 18 and 21, and the British audience happily sang along as if it were Christmas.

The outrageous act did lead to official complaints from the Israeli Embassy in London, and massive backlash online. In addition, local police are running through footage to see if any offenses were committed, but the outrage should not soothe our concerns.

The BBC streams Glastonbury live, which means the genocidal call for the death of almost every single Israeli adult was proudly broadcast live on the UK’s publicly-funded state media channel. Perhaps it is a fitting tribute, seeing as the lies and anti-Israel bias of the BBC’s reporting from Gaza is responsible for so much of the latest outbreak of antisemitism spreading into the mainstream in the first place.

Like the fields of Jewish farmers, Glastonbury takes a fallow year to allow the pastures to heal. For Glastonbury, this is done every fifth year, and as the last respite was in 2021, the year 2026 will thankfully see no festival. But if the only thing Glastonbury has left to offer now is a genocidal, antisemitic hate festival, perhaps we should all hope the pause becomes something far more permanent.